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Billerica building panel mulls spot for new school

By Evan Lips, elips@lowellsun.com

Updated:
10/17/2012 12:41:15 AM EDT

BILLERICA -- A summer's worth of visioning sessions, combined with endless hours of research, has led members of a group charged with finding a solution to the town's crumbling schools to arrive at one startling conclusion.

The best place for a new high school lies nowhere near Billerica Memorial High School.

The number-one spot, Superintendent of Schools Tim Piwowar said last Tuesday, would be on a large swath of property at 110 Allen Road currently occupied by the Locke Middle School.

With 49 acres, the parcel of land occupied by the Locke is the biggest in the district. Under the ambitious plan, the oldest of the district's six elementary schools -- the Eugene C. Vining Elementary School -- would close. With 49 acres at its disposal, all of the district's major athletic fields could be consolidated onto a single school property.

The five remaining elementary schools would drop fifth grade, while kindergarten would expand to a full day. Students in grades five through seven would then move on to one of two middle schools. The Locke would remain open during construction of a new high school, which would include eighth-graders, with the eventual plan involving an expansion of the Marshall Middle School to house all students in grades 5 through 7.

Piwowar said the ideas tossed around by the nine-member group, comprising community members, town and school officials, intended to address a building strategy in which the replacement of aging facilities is scattered.

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One of the hurdles facing the district, according to Piwowar, is the fact that nearly all of the schools were built during the same era, with the exception of the Thomas Ditson Elementary School, which opened in 2001, and the new Parker Elementary School, which opened last month.

"Our schools were all born at around the same time, which means they're all dying at the same time," he said.

With the opening of the new Parker, the Vining, built in 1957, now lays claim to being the district's oldest elementary school.

The Hajjar, Kennedy and Dutile were all built between 1965 and 1970. The old wing of the high school opened in 1957, while the "new" wing opened in 1975.

There are six strategic options, Piwowar said, to approach facility improvement. All options are designed to meet three main goals: to provide full-day kindergarten, ensure that elementary-school classes stick together through middle school and to provide a level of education that does not waiver regardless of neighborhood.

The last goal sparked some spirited discussion this past summer, as parents in neighborhoods outside of where the new Parker would be drawing students voiced frustrations over the fact they were paying the same taxes to send their children to older, outdated schools.

"The point of this study was not designed to just level the playing field, but to make it level and make it high," Piwowar added.

Other goals included bringing back vocational programs to the high school and to provide more transitional programs for students as they graduate from the middle school to the high school.

The options range from the simple, in which the district maintains its status quo and deals with infrastructure problems as they happen, to the ambitious, where a new high school is built at the Locke site.

Piwowar said the firm hired to assist with the facilities study, Dore & Whittier Architects, Inc., had expressed concerns over whether a new high school at the Locke site would over-stress aging Allen Road. However, unrelated to any school spending, the town has already reached an agreement with the state to revamp Allen Road in 2014.

The best-case scenario, according to officials, would involve a new high school opening at the Locke in 2017 and a new Locke opening at the site of the Vining in 2022. The town could then assume control of the property at the old high school "and do what it may," according to Piwowar.

The only other tweaking of that proposal would involve building a single district-wide middle school through an addition at the Marshall, meaning 1,300 students would learn under one roof.

"God bless the principal who works there," Piwowar joked.

Thus far, the group has not released any data relating to project costs, but Piwowar said a public form slated for Oct. 24 will discuss outline price points.

"Right now we're throwing some different ideas at the wall to see which ones will stick and I'm really excited about this," he said. "We want to be strategic and we don't want to be in a position where we have to react."

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